Brief description
Understanding variation in coral bleaching responses across environmental gradients, taxa, and colony sizes is important to predict changes in community composition with climate change. Our aim was to quantify how bleaching severity varied with water velocity, cross shelf gradient, degree heating weeks (DHWs), surface complexity, depth, taxa, and colony size during the 2022 mild bleaching event on the central Great Barrier Reef (GBR). During March and April 2022, we surveyed > 7000m2 of reef substrate using photogrammetry, and scored the bleaching severity of more than 5000 coral colonies belonging to 13 taxa. A series of generalised linear mixed effects models were fitted to quantify the relationship between bleaching severity and the key biological and environmental factors. The data includes the following variables: Plot - unique identification for each 12x6m plot (four replicates per site) Site - unique identification for each site (replicate sites per reef) Reef- unique identification for each reef (OCCH - Chicken Reef, OCDA- Davies Reef, OCLB- Little Broadhurst Reef, PA -Palm Islands) TL_id - colony identification at the plot level Taxa - taxonomic idenfitication of each colony (Adgt - Acropora digitate spp., Pmas - Porites massive spp., Pver - Pocillopora verrucosa, Acor - Acropora corymbose spp., Lobo_sp - Lobophyllia spp., Menc- Montipora encrusting spp., Gspp- Goniastrea spp., Spis - Stylophora pistillata, Shys- Seriatopora hystrix, Abra- Acropora branching spp., Pdam - Pocillopora damicornis, Plat - Platygyra spp., Atab - Acropora tabular spp.) Bleaching - bleaching score (1 - no bleaching, 2 - 1-50% of the colony area was bleached, 3- 51-95% of the colony area was bleached, 4 - 96-100% of the colony area was bleached, 5 - partial mortality, 6- whole colony mortality). Bleaching_res - bleaching response (bleached = 1, not bleached = 0) Bleaching_minor - whether the colony had minor bleaching (1-50% of the colony) =1, or no bleaching =0. NAs indicate more severe bleaching levels. Bleaching_major - whether the colony had major bleaching (51-95% of the colony) = 1, or minor to no bleaching = 0. NAs indicate more severe bleaching levels. Bleaching_fully - whether the colony was fully bleached (>96% of the colony, partial mortality, or fully dead) =1, or major to no bleaching = 0. lat - site latitude long - site longitude Zone - depth zone (S = shallow, 3-8 m; D = deep, 9-15 m) ubedmean = horizontal water velocity at the bed (m/s). Extracted from Callaghan et al 2023- https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:8246441 . Date_2022 = date of the initial survey in January 2022 Date_bleaching = date of the bleaching survey in March - April 2022 DHW - degree heating weeks. Extracted from NOAA's daily 5km satellite dervied estimates: https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/5km/index_5km_dhw.php. rugosity_plane: rugosity at the site, extracted from the reconstructed 3D models fd_fugosity_plane: fractal dimension at the site, extracted from the reconstructed 3D models slope: the slope of the site (in degrees), extracted from the reconstructed 3D models Cross_shelf: cross shelf position (inshore or offshore) log_area : colony area in m2 (log10)Lineage
Maintenance and Update Frequency: notPlanned
Statement: Bleaching scores were visually assigned to each individual colony from orthomosaics. Shaded colonies, for which bleaching scores could not be reliably assigned, were excluded.
Notes
CreditGordon, S
Credit
Lechene, M
Lechene, M
Credit
Becker, M
Becker, M
Credit
Fabricius, K
Fabricius, K
Credit
Ferrari, R
Ferrari, R
Credit
Toor, M
Toor, M
Credit
Aston, E
Aston, E
Credit
Alvarez-Noriega, M
Alvarez-Noriega, M
Modified: 09 08 2024
Identifiers
- global : 4b199e09-4b27-4e74-b3b1-a40849b5b823
